The prior art, and in particular the Applicant's prior document FR-A-2 718 347=EP-A-676 158, which also issued as U.S. Pat. No. 5,560,374 to Viard discloses a method and a device for supporting an element to be supported, in particular the body of a patient, making it possible to support the element at an essentially constant controlled penetration depth.
In the Applicant's prior document, a measurement device is provided comprising a first element that is integrated in the support device, which complicates the manufacturing technology and exposes the integrated element to any damage that is inflicted to the support element itself.
Furthermore, the monitoring or control means are disposed externally which increases the overall size of the device, and gives rise to coupling and installation difficulties.
In addition, that prior device suffers from the drawback that technical elements are integrated with the therapeutic surface, which increases the difficulty of managing the therapeutic surface, in particular as regards interchangeability.
To reduce the overall size and to simplify implementation and management, it has been proposed, in Document US-A-5,325,551 to integrate the monitoring and control devices inside the mattress unit itself.
Unfortunately, that solution does not solve the problem of making the technical elements independent from the mattress unit, this problem being addressed for the first time by the inventors.